Ideas Are Not Worthless!

I’m getting tired from hearing people say ideas are worthless, or saying you need something more than ideas. Of course you need more! But without the idea, you can’t do anything else! On some posts before, I had replied to, “ideas are worth 99 cents” by asking him to explain how Google came about, if ideas are really worth that much. Another person replied with, “it isn’t the idea, it’s the execution.” I agreed with him at that time, I was wrong. Without the idea, there is no execution! If anyone wants to reply with saying that anyone can think up ideas. Well, that’s the great part about it! Everything we are right now started with ideas. Language, tradition, the advancement of technology, all started with ideas! Small ideas evolve into something greater. Like programming, for example, it didn’t just start with C++, it evolved from basic commands.

Now, this is the part where I completely agree with the developers, and anyone that works hard for those people with just the ideas. You definently should have all the credit! No question about it, and you should definently have the greater profits. But Jesus, guys, you wouldn’t have any profits in the first place if it weren’t for the guy who had the idea. Everybody knows that the developers, artists, etc, have all the work and do the hardest part of the job, making the game, or executing the idea. But don’t think you should think the guy with the idea as nothing, think of him as the manager, he is the one who sets up what to do and when to do it. And if he doesn’t do anything, and just expects you to make his game, then he’s someone you shouldn’t work with.

So, for any replies I just want to here people’s opinions on this, and any questions that you want to ask. For fun, you can try to disprove me here by stumping me with some questions. BUT, don’t post pointless crap, just to increase your post count. One last thing, don’t post common sense questions like, “what if it’s a useless idea?”, No one needs that, so don’t post it. Anyways, I hope I changed someone’s opion of ideas, reply with all you got!

Agreed. Some people are envisionists and some people aren’t. So if you tell someone an idea they just go….“right…um yeah cool I guess” they won’t be impressed till you’ve got some sort of demo or something going then they’re all OMGTHATS AWESOME" and they completely forget about it just starting as an idea.

Ideas are a founding base, it seems they aren’t worth as much unless you can provide something else with them. It’s like the bottom of a cake I spose…(lol bad analogy)

Good example of this is some programmers I know. They are the best programmers ever, could code you physics etc in no time at all, but when it comes to coming up with a game idea. They just can’t seem to come up with one. They’re too much about the code itself. They also lose interest in any idea too quickly too finish something.

Crypted, if I recall correctly you are the person who says you have a game idea and want credit for the game, despite asking everybody else to do the work without any proven experience, am I correct? Nobody likes working for somebody who is vague about their game ideas, refuses to elaborate, and has no experience, especially if they are taking credit.

I’ll speak to this, since I have some experience with it. I fully agree that an idea is worth 99 cents. In fact, I think that might be an over-estimate. Think about what determines the value of an object. It’s a question of supply and demand. In the case of ideas, the supply is high and the demand is low. From this simple economy, ideas are clearly worth very little.

Are good ideas required to make money? Sure. But as a whole, if you’re given an idea, its value is quite low. This is something that I found out the hard way when attempting to pitch my company to investors. We were told numerous times that we had a great idea and a really cool plan, but because we lacked experience and a well-established CEO in front of our company we were turned down over and over. An investor once told me: “In real estate, it’s location, location, location. In business, it’s management, management, management.” Yes, you can quote things like Google at me, but most (by a large margin) companies that start up never get off the ground, let alone become a Google. So yeah, ideas are worthless, while necessary. Think of it like air. Air is worth almost nothing, but it’s still pretty important. ;-)

EDIT: That’s not to say that people shouldn’t get credit for ideas. But there’s no credit to be given until an idea is fully implemented. Another investor once said (this one is paraphrased) “If you have mediocre management with a great idea, the company will fail. If you have great management with a mediocre idea, the company will succeed. It’s all about the people.”

Mils: One of the major rules of this site is “Don’t be a jerk.” You falsely accused him of something, then blew him off and basically told him he has written a worthless rant. That qualifies as being a jerk. As you’ve said (or at least implied) so often before, if you don’t have anything to add to the conversation, don’t bother posting.

>Mils: One of the major rules of this site is “Don’t be a jerk.” You falsely accused him of something, then blew him off and basically told him he has written a worthless rant. That qualifies as being a jerk. As you’ve said (or at least implied) so often before, if you don’t have anything to add to the conversation, don’t bother posting.

As you are fond of saying, don’t put words in other people’s mouths. I never said that the rant was worthless, and I didn’t imply that it was. The only thing I said was that it was a rant, and considering he is venting his annoyance at something, it is. True, I didn’t read it all the way through, but I remembered somebody with his avatar who had ideas and wanted credit for them, and I wanted to clear that up because, frankly, at the time his post was TL and I DR.

Doesn’t make you any less of a jerk, mils. You chewed him out for something he didn’t do, and then replied with “Meh” when he pointed out that he hadn’t done it. Not even an apology.

And the implication that you “didn’t bother to read” his post is that it isn’t worth reading, so as I said, you basically told him it was worthless. Like ideas. See how I brought that back to topic? ;-)

So let me get this straight: Me not reading because I asked a question first to validate if the user was who I thought it was is the same as telling him his post is worthless? I didn’t bother to read the rest of the post because it was long and ranty, and I wanted to make sure it wasn’t the same guy who asked for all the credit. That is perfectly reasonable.

Yes you need ideas to make a good game, though at the conceptual level they don’t have to be original. Mainstream gaming is really stagnant right now, more than it’s ever been.

And it’s none of my business but milskidasith, man up and apologise, like you should have done in the first place. There’s no way you don’t have the basic communication skills to realise you’ve been unecessarily rude.

True, I didn’t read it all the way through, but I remembered somebody with his avatar who had ideas and wanted credit for them, and I wanted to clear that up because, frankly, at the time his post was TL and I DR.

You know that discredits you a lot for debates in Serious Discussion….how often do you reply to an argument without reading all of what they said?

To be more precise, I have been responding with shouts (still waiting on your response to my post in the thread, Phoenix.)

Also, to answer your question Phoenix, I assume that he meant about collaborations, because I remember that Nqkoi was the one who said ideas are worth 99 cents in the Colab forums to this person. But I don’t know for sure. Eggy, I shouted you.

A response to what post, mils? EDIT: Oh, you wanted me to send you a whisper. I thought you had dropped it. As I said, PM me if you want to continue to talk about it. :-P

And while I think he started because of games, he’s mentioned Google, so I think he wanted to broaden it. I just wanted to see for sure. I thought had made a good case for ideas being worthless but there haven’t been any responses…oh well…

Well, replying to what you said. You’re post is insanely smart, every bit of it I read had some real knowledge in it, like you knew what you were talking about, (not that I’m saying other’s posts we’re dumb, you know what I mean), and I would definently like to hear more of your opinion, maybe personal experiences, etc.

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